


Daydreams

by Helicidae



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Abuse, Angst, Character Study, Drama, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-12-05
Updated: 2011-12-09
Packaged: 2017-10-26 23:13:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/288946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Helicidae/pseuds/Helicidae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Moments of mourning, hurt and temper, featuring Sherlock, John, Jim Moriarty and Sebastian Moran.  Missing scenes from my story Oneirology.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Warming: will not make much sense at all prior to reading Oneirology. Also, warning for self-indulgent character study. Sorry.

Analysis of the dental records had come back that afternoon and together with the DNA profiling, there was little doubt left that the body did in fact belong to one John Watson.

Sherlock sat on the armchair, head thrown back to stare at the ceiling, and didn't feel surprised. It wasn't a surprise, not at all, because that result had been obvious and very, very probable from the start, and he'd never been one to ignore the facts. And that was what this was. Facts, data, and nothing more.

John Watson was dead; cause of death fire (shock, heatstroke, loss of blood and probably thermal decomposition of vital organs, rather than carbon monoxide or carbon dioxide poisoning or smoke inhalation, since the flames had been small and the room possessing an air vent in the ceiling). Actual death may have taken over an hour, maybe up to two hours.

Forensics had found blood and flesh burnt black to charcoal and caked onto almost every surface of the room reachable to a desperate, dying, five foot eight inch man.

Sherlock wet his lips. They tasted like the sugary, milky tea Lestrade had given him, an hour ago at his office, when the case of John Watson's disappearance had been closed officially.

Lestrade hadn't been happy. No, that wasn't right. He'd been... upset. Sad? His desk had been particularly neat, paper and pens and computer monitor ordered into simple geometric shapes, all parallel and perpendicular. He tended to do that when distressed, when powerless, when a case was going badly or settled too inconclusively. This case was anything but inconclusive. Finished, over, and just another folder to add to the veritable chest of drawers dedicated to Jim Moriarty.

Sherlock let out a breath, slow, and found it to be shaky. Without moving his head he groped for the pack of cigarettes and lighter he knew to be somewhere, hidden behind the chair's cushions, and finding them lit up. He was already wearing two nicotine patches, but he'd stopped buying them since starting smoking again, thirty two days ago, and it'd be a waste not to finish the boxes he already had. His next exhalation, hurried after an almost inexpert suck of the cigarette, was no smoother. Nor was the next, and nor the last breath from that first cigarette, crushed and replaced after seven and a half minutes.

It was dark. He hadn't turned on the lights when returning home and neither had he opened the curtains that morning. There were sirens outside, and cars. After his third cigarette his respiratory rate was passable as normal, eighteen breaths per minute: calmer, smoother. A sudden burst of anger that his breathing had been anything other than completely controlled in the first place and it was out again, too hurried and jagged, like gas escaping from an unknown valve somewhere in his system.

He didn't light another cigarette because he'd thrown the lighter, an ugly chrome thing, across the room a few minutes ago, knocking four books and two sheets of paper from the edge of the mantelpiece to the floor, and breaking the neck of one of his graduation flasks in the process. He threw the cigarette pack after the lighter but that only hit the wall above the mantelpiece and dropped to the floor, disappointingly non destructive. There wasn't anything left to throw within reach and somehow he couldn't seem to get up to find something appropriate.

An hour passed. It was still only late afternoon, slipping inexorably into evening. The only noise was of sirens and cars, hateful in the street. The itch to throw something, anything, was hurting behind his eyes and tightening in his throat but his limbs were too heavy to move, the back of his head sinking into the cushions like a vacuum was pulling him down, neck too weak to escape. Food, he reminded himself, might help that. All he'd had since breakfast the previous day had been Lestrade's obnoxious tea.

The vacuum pulled him down to curl into the chair, legs hanging over one armrest, feeling exposed. He fell asleep.

 


	2. Chapter 2

John woke as soon as his feet touched the water, and as his back slid into the cold depths he arched up, gasping, and clawed at the bathtub rim.

“Sherlock,” he said, words breathless and thready as his struggled, attempting to wriggle out of the strong hands lowering him down onto the slippery acrylic. “Cold!” He grasped at the man’s shoulders, getting wet handprints on the dark shirt. Naked, sitting, half lying, the water lapped at his chest making the skin pull tight and form goosebumps. His teeth were chattering already, thickly, like biting through treacle, and he could feel tremors in his hands, in the muscle of his back, down his legs which he pulled up half over the bathtub rim, shaking water onto the tiled floor. The acrylic was freezing and unforgiving against his arse and sides of his thighs, bruising against his tailbone, squeezing out small noises of protest from his lungs. But Sherlock’s hands were pushing him down and unhooking his legs, the water a painful shock to his dry shoulders and neck, and he couldn’t help the panic making him thrash as much as his body seemed to allow, foreign to control like a puppet with only half of its strings.

“Stop it,” Sherlock said, hands moving to more hold him down than their previous support. “It’s not cold. Stop it or you’ll slip.”

“Too cold.” His voice came out a reedy whine. He kicked as a hand gripped his own two, too easily, and pushed them down, water sloshing over the edge of the bath.

“It’s not cold.” There was a edge to Sherlock’s tone: coaxing, baby talking a stubborn child. Another edge was harder and tasted of frustration. His heart was beating in his ribcage too hard and fast, lub dub again and again to an increasing tempo, pulse tangible in his stomach, roaring in his ears. He tried to pull his hands free, fingers clumsy and swelling, useless. The bottom of one of his feet hit the glass bath screen, sending a lance of pain through the arch and up the bones of his lower leg.

Then his head was underwater and the cold was like a wet slap to the face, needles in his eyes before they snapped shut, thick water crowding into his ears and nose, swelling in his mouth to force its way down his throat, stinging. It tasted like soap, and bile. He sputtered, couldn’t help but swallow and choke.

Pressure on his shoulders. He jerked and Sherlock was holding him upright, grip too tight and scalding hot on his skin. Coughing: great, painful, full-body racking, twisting him up tighter and tighter. Acid burnt up his throat, in his nose, dribbling with bathwater from gasping lips.

“No, stop it,” he breathed, words broken into little fragments around heaving gulps. “Sherlock, please. Let me up. It’s cold. Please.”

“It’s perfectly warm,” Sherlock said, and the patient, father-like warm frustration in his voice was almost tangible. “Now stop with the struggling, or you’ll slip again.”

“Let me up.”

The cold was biting into the skin around his thighs, his groin, making the muscles deep in his belly ache and in his chest shudder. He forced unwilling legs to bend and levered himself up, grasping at the wall, the bathtub rim, at Sherlock’s face, shoulders, clothes. He could hear himself making choppy noises with each breath, small sounds like moans or whines, and couldn’t make himself stop.

The back of his head hit the floor of the bath with a crack he heard before felt. Involuntarily a lung full of air roiled its way out of his mouth and was replaced by icy water, raw down his throat. His chest felt too heavy to move, his legs paralysed, trapped underwater. From the back of his head to his eyes, down his spine, sharp, thick pain replaced the cold hurt turning into numbness. He couldn’t breath. Panic descended. He couldn’t think, couldn’t breath.

Sometime after the panic had passed, he was sobbing in air and cradled in Sherlock’s arms. From nose to the bottom of his lungs he hurt, achingly tired. Everywhere else was numb, except for where Sherlock was touching him, which burnt hot with comfort.

Sherlock was making shushing noises, one hand on the top of his head, stroking. “It’s alright, I have you, I have you.” He couldn’t move, not even if he wanted to, and was pliant as a rag doll as he was laid back down into the bath. The tap turned on, water topped up and a careful hand at the back of his head kept his face out of the water. He pried his eyes open, unwilling and stinging behind eyelids, and tracked the path of a flannel in Sherlock’s hand, of which he could see but not feel. Up and down his arms, legs, over his chest and wiping long swathes across his belly and waist. Flannel rinsed and squeezed carefully with one hand. He was tilted to one side so Sherlock could reach his back. Laid down again. Feet, ankles. Tender between his legs.

He closed his eyes.

.  
.

John woke shivering, fingers clenched around the sopping material of a flannel, swollen and unwilling to relinquish their hold. His body bent into a cold space – a bathtub, empty but wet, freezing. Every muscle protested as he crawled onto his knees, stared blankly around the bathroom. It felt like he was painted in one massive bruise. He felt sick. There were no clothes of towels. In the hallway he stood, shaky, but his head was swimming and as he sat back down, crumpling to his knees, his head knocked against the wall.

Uncontrollable heaves; his body wouldn’t work. Vomit splashed onto his hands, dribbling onto his chest, feeling hot enough to be scalding. Tight horror at the sight of lumpy, translucent fluid on the carpet seemed to make his throat swell, ache, hard to breath through.

Sherlock crouched down behind him, one hand on his shoulder, rubbing small circles over the flesh there. Breath burnt hot on damp skin.

“Oh John, look at the mess you made,” Sherlock said, reproachful, second hand petting at his hair, making his head jog up and down on a painful neck. “You’ll have to have a bath now.”


End file.
